Hi everybody - my name is Kristof, I would like to ask you about this mineral specimen, unfortunately without any details on label except 'Sphalerite - Spain'. What do you think - could it be from the Troya Mine in Basque Country, or rather this is a mistake and this is Elmwood, TN? Pictures as attachment.
Regards

I don't think anyone could give a definitive guesstimation of the locality. I have some sphalerite from Santander Spain that is of the same general color [best I can see the color]. Santander is well known for quite clear dark bi-color sphalerite, but not all of it is, and I'd imagine even in Spain there are several locations for sphalerite...so don't know if my statement is any help. Use mindat website and see if you see any spanish sphalerite that looks similar, but I think you can never be 100% sure with a label like that. Much sphalerite looks something like that. A few locations are distinctive due to color, habit or matrix.

Hi everybody - my name is Kristof, I would like to ask You about mineral specimen, unfortunately without any details on label except 'Sphalerite - Spain'. What do you thing about - could it be Troya Mine from Basque Country or rather this is mistake and this is Elmwood, TN? Pictures as attachment.

Hi Kristof, I'm no expert on Spanish sphalerite localities, but I'm quite experienced in U.S. minerals and this specimen looks to me like a typical no-matrix piece of sphalerite from Elmwood Mine ...

of course it's always more or less vague to "guess" a locality. In some cases you will never have an idea where a specimen comes from, in other cases the origin can be determined reliably (e.g. pyrite from Navajun/Spain). In your case you see that many here are quite sure that this specimen comes from Elmwood Mine, Tennessee, you already guessed that in your opening post. And though some others in this discussion argued that they have never seen similar specimens from Elmwood, I disagree: I handled a lot of sphalerite specimens from Elmwood Mine and your sphalerite looks like a typical one. The form, colour and luster of the crystals and the way the cleavage at the bottom looks - all this makes it a distinctive Elmwood sphalerite. Yes, it COULD be from another locality and nobody can say for a 100% that it definitely IS from Elmwood. But I'm sure for a 97 % ;-)

For comparison, here's the Elmwood sphalerite from my collection, a "ball" of sphalerite on matrix; the "crystal ball" looks exactly like your piece. And i also had and have Elmwood specimens with sphalerite as matrix or as associated mineral, and in many cases it looked like yours. So, although we will never know absolutely sure if Elmwood or not, please don't get insecure about the opinions that the specimen does not look like Elmwood - it does ;-)

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot vote in polls in this forumYou cannot attach files in this forumYou can download files in this forum